Send Help: Is Woke Back? Or Are We Doomed to Repeat the Cycle?
minor spoilers
***
15
1 hour 54 minutes
Rachel McAdams in Send Help (2026)
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Written by: Damian Shannon & Mark Swift
Starring: Rachel McAdams as Linda Liddle; Dylan O’Brien as Bradley Preston
Produced by: Sam Raimi & Zainab Azizi
In this horror thriller comedy, the hard-working but socially inept Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) and her arrogant boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O'Brien) become stranded on a deserted island together after a plane crash, which kills the rest of their colleagues. Equipped with survival expertise and masterful strategic planning skills, Bradley quickly becomes reliant on Linda to take care of him whilst the two await a rescue. But as their isolation switches their power imbalance, Linda is provided the opportunity to hold Bradley accountable for his sexist mistreatment of her.
Dylan O’Brien and Rachel McAdams in Send Help (2026)
Sam Raimi's return to an original screenplay sits somewhere between Ready or Not (2019) and Blink Twice (2024) on the elevated horror lunch table. Troupes of the elevated subgenre -- most notably the social commentary and the slasher smile -- are sewn together with Raimi's recognisable comic book style cinematography to produce something entertaining, enjoyable, but a little overdone.
Amongst the vengeful, at times lustful, mostly amusing back-and-forth between Linda and Bradley was something deeper than just a battle of the sexes. A class element burbled atop the gendered surface, bearing the question of whether a company CEO can truly last a day without his hard-working staff. This is quickly answered with a blunt, bloody, no.
But we move past this into something darker: what if we seek to usurp our evil bosses? Do we use our expertise for good? Or do we transform into them? Raimi seems to answer this with a yes, kind of, but not quite. We root for Linda, because Bradley is a loser with few redeeming features. But Linda shows herself to be capable of a physical brutality that Bradley seems only able to enact psychologically. And so -- who is worse?
Rachel McAdams as Linda Liddle in Send Help (2026)
This is where Send Help trips over itself, in a similar vein to Blink Twice. Without giving too much away, the ending seems unable to define whether the master's tools really can dismantle the master's house. There are some intriguing twists and turns that wrap the underlying social commentary into knots. It throws into question whether this is a critique of girlboss feminism or an endorsement.
It is, however, a refreshing change to see a woman be genuinely off-putting. As much as we're rooting for Linda, her social faux pas are not just cringe-inducing, but beyond makeover territory. Yet still we see a transformation in her as she connects with the natural world (somewhat), that isn't about her becoming palatable but instead succumbing to her primal state.
And so, there's a psycho-geographical undercurrent that tampers with the social themes Raimi engages. Are we comparing or distancing the corporate and natural hierarchies? Are we emasculating Bradley and empowering Linda? Is there absolutely nothing to this? There's a lot of room for discussion, but nothing decisive enough to solidly decide whether I love or loathe this film. It's an in-the-middle kind of job.
